Psyc 1000 Guelph

Front 1

Aristotle

Back 1

asked questions to understand the relationship between the body and the psyche

Front 2

Wilhelm Wundt

Back 2

carefully measured observations and experiments

Front 3

Titchener

Back 3

relied on self report data and introspection, had people report on sensations and other elements of reaction in response to stimuli, tried to build a model of the mind's structure (structuralism)

Front 4

William James

Back 4

wrote the Principles of Psychology, opposed the structuralism focus on introspection and the search for smallest elements, developed functionalism which focuses on the outcome of mental processes and behaviour, studied human thoughts, feelings, etc. and asked what functions they might serve, focuses on results of behaviour rather than elements of behaviour

Front 5

Skinner

Back 5

founded behaviourism, focusing on behaviours as the only way to derive general principles of psychology, thoughts do not cause behaviour as behaviour is shaped by learned contingencies, allowed psychology to be studied with non-human subjects, most robust approach

Front 6

Jean Piaget

Back 6

key figure in the rise of cognitivism, belief that our thoughts do matter, return to focus on mental processes but using other approached than introspections

Front 7

why do we need a scientific approach?

Back 7

our intuition in coloured by a multitude of cognitive biases and the scientific approach helps to guard against this

Front 8

hindsight bias

Back 8

"i knew it all along," strength of psychology is not to explain a behaviour after the fact but predict what behaviours will occur before they happen

Front 9

the single case bias

Back 9

"my uncle Bob smoked all his life and lived to 100," can't use a single case or exception to practice psychology

Front 10

perceiving order in incidental events bias

Back 10

"i'm on a streak," probability for each roll, shot, etc. is the same

Front 11

why are we biased?

Back 11

biases help us function, simplify our thinking, makes our day more effortless for our brain, helps us make decisions, gives us the sense that the world is the way we feel it is

Front 12

Steps of the scientific method

Back 12

something we observe, theory to explain it, hypotheses, operationalize, data collection and analysis, support or rejection of theory, share findings and mobilize knowledge regardless of results

Front 13

six key principles of scientific thinking

Back 13

falsifiablility, replicability, extraordinary claims (is the evidence as strong as the claim?), Occam's Razor (does a simpler explanation fit the data just as well?), ruling out rival hypotheses, correlation vs. causation

Front 14

descriptive research methods

Back 14

observe phenomena as they happen, goal is not to explain but to describe, case studies, must be careful not to overgeneralize, naturalistic observation (in natural environment), surveys

Front 15

correlational research methods

Back 15

is there an association between X and Y?

most used method, primary goal is not to explain but to predict when something will happen, surveys, typically interpreted in terms of a correlation coefficient (positive vs. negative, strong vs. weak, perfect correlation = 1), correlation does not mean causation

Front 16

experimental research methods

Back 16

primary goal is to examine causes, only method that allows you to draw robust conclusions, experimenter manipulates one factor/variable to determine its effect, requires a control group, strategies to control for the effects of external variables

Front 17

how do researchers control for external factors?

Back 17

random assignment helps ensure that the composition of the groups typically reflect the composition of the population, standardizing procedures

Front 18

statistical inference

Back 18

probability that you will find the same differences (or bigger ones) as you have observed in future studies, start with assumption that there is no difference between conditions, if the probability is smaller than 5% it is deemed "statistically significant" and the hypothesis is supported (kind of a reverse process)

Front 19

six characteristics of good research

Back 19

based on measurements that are objective, valid, and reliable, concern to reduce bias, generalizable, can be replicated, shared with others, done ethically

Front 20

what is the meaning of objective and reliable?

Back 20

measure of a variable that is consistent within a margin of error, consistent and stable across multiple observations and points in time, self-report, third party observation, physiological measure

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construct validity

Back 21

the extent to which the variables in a study truly represent the abstract concept of interest to the researcher

Front 22

experimenter bias

Back 22

the experimenter's expectations may influence the results, solution is a double-blind study in which neither the participant nor the researcher know what is going on

Front 23

placebo effect

Back 23

observation of behaviour change because the participant believes in the effectiveness of the manipulation

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Hawthorne effect

Back 24

behaviour change occurring as a result of merely being observed, solution is unobtrusive measures in which the subject does not know they are being studied, anonymity, confidentiality

Front 25

knowledge mobilization

Back 25

act of putting knowledge generated through research to active use by publishing in scholarly journals, etc.

Front 26

two main principles of ethical research

Back 26

clear benefits which outweigh the risks, participants must provide informed consent

Front 27

Research Ethics Board

Back 27

committee of researchers and officials at an institution charged with the protection of research participants, review research protocols and assess the possible benefit to society against the risk to participants

Front 28

structure of a neuron

Back 28

dendrites receive information from other neurons, ell body contains the nucleus and decides the activation, axon conducts nerve impulses, terminal button communicates with the next neuron

Front 29

action potential

Back 29

neural impulse that travels down the axon to the terminal buttons, generated by moving positive and negative charge

Front 30

how is the action potential initiated?

Back 30

neuron begins at resting potential, signal received from other neuron, when enough signals are received the threshold is reached (threshold is all or nothing), depolarization, repolarization, refractory period

Front 31

how do neurons communicate with each other?

Back 31

action potential causes release of neurotransmitters from axon terminal into the synaptic gap, float across gap until they bind with specific receptors on the dendrites of another neuron, reuptake (vesicles reabsorb neurotransmitters)

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acetylcholine

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enables muscle action, learning, memory

(Alzheimer's disease)

Front 33

dopamine

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influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion (Parkinson's disease, ADHD)

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serotonin

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affects mood, hunger, arousal (depression)

Front 35

norepinephrine

Back 35

alertness, arousal (ADD)

Front 36

glutamate

Back 36

excitatory, learning, memory (migraines, seizures)

Front 37

GABA

Back 37

inhibitory, learning, memory, sleep (increased by alcohol)

Front 38

agonist

Back 38

molecule that fills the receptor site and activates it, acting like the neurotransmitter

Front 39

antagonist

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molecule that fills the receptor so that the neurotransmitter cannot get in and activate the site

Front 40

synaptic pruning

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elimination and creating of new connections

Front 41

neurogenesis

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production of new neurons from immature stem cells

Front 42

nerves

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neural "cables" containing many axons

Front 43

divisions of peripheral nervous system

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somatic, autonomic (sympathetic and parasympathetic)

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endocrine system

Back 44

set of glands that produce hormones which travel through the bloodstream, slower but longer message transmission

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medulla

Back 45

base of brain stem, life-sustaining functions such as breathing, heartbeat, etc.

Front 46

pons

Back 46

helps coordinate unconscious movements, sleep

Front 47

midbrain

Back 47

associated with movement, tracking of visual stimuli and reflexes triggered by sound

Front 48

reticular formation

Back 48

collection of small neural networks spread throughout the brain stem, some control over life-sustaining functions, most known for role in sleep and consciousness, helps filter incoming sensory information

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cerebellum

Back 49

back of the brain, fundamental to the coordination of voluntary movement and balance

Front 50

thalamus

Back 50

relay centre for sensory and motor information to different parts of the cerebral cortex (except smell), sends information from the cortex to the medulla and cerebellum

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limbic system

Back 51

located on both sides of the brain, processes information about our internal states, plays a key role in emotional experiences and memory formation, includes hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus

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hypothalamus

Back 52

associated with emotions and motivations, helps in regulation of hunger and thirst, experience of rewards, adjusts body temperature in changing environments, directs endocrine system via messages to the pituitary gland

Front 53

amygdala

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two lima-bean sized neural clusters, associated with the experience of different emotions (particularly negative ones), key role in fear conditioning

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hippocampus

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partakes in neurogenesis throughout the lifespan, processes conscious, episodic memories, key to creating mental maps, works with the amygdala to form emotionally charged memories

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cerebral cortex

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layer covering the brain, processes information about external stimuli, circonvolutions increase surface area, grey matter (cell bodies) and white matter (axons), glial cells which feed and protect neurons and assist neural transmission

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occipital lobes

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visual information

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temporal lobes

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auditory information

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parietal lobes

Back 58

sensory information, touch and body position

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frontal lobes

Back 59

speech, movement, judgment

Front 60

prefrontal cortex

Back 60

moral decisions, impulse control, social behaviour and relationships

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two hemispheres

Back 61

four lobes found in both, contralateral connections to the body's systems, two sides do not touch, each hemisphere handles a lot of similar functions but some functions are specialized to only one side, generally right hemisphere plays a role in visual and spatial tasks while left hemisphere plays a role in language and analytical thinking

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motor cortex

Back 62

axons receive motor signals from the cortex

Front 63

sensory cortex

Back 63

axons send sensory information to the cortex

Front 64

corpus callosum

Back 64

allows exchange of information between hemispheres, sometimes severed surgically

Front 65

Wernicke's area

Back 65

speech comprehension

Front 66

split-brain

Back 66

corpus callosum surgically severed but optic chiasm (where visual fields switch sides of the brain) stay intact, halves of the brain and halves of the visual field are no longer coordinated

Front 67

how to investigate the brain?

Back 67

stimulation (chemically, magnetically, electrically), lesions (surgeries, accidents), animal models, noninvasive (EEG, CAT, MRI, PET, fMRI)

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cognition

Back 68

mental activities that help us function, including figuring out how the world works, developing models and concepts, problem solving, storing and retrieving knowledge, understanding and using language

Front 69

Piaget's schemas

Back 69

"mental container" that holds our experiences and organizes them according to similarities and differences

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assimilation

Back 70

new experiences are absorbed into an already existing schema

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accomodation

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new experiences lead to the modification of a schema, brings children to enter a new way of looking at the world

Front 72

Piaget's stages of development

Back 72

development is a combination of nature and nurture, occurs in steps

Front 73

sensorimotor stage

Back 73

experiencing the world through senses and actions, do not possess object permanence, stranger anxiety, birth to two years old

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preoperational stage

Back 74

representing things with words and images, using intuitive rather than logical reasoning, pretend play, egocentrism, 2-7 years old

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theory of mind

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ability to understand that others have their own point of view, fundamental turning point between preoperational and concrete operational stages

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concrete operational stage

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thinking logically about concrete events, grasping concrete analogies and preforming arithmetical operations, 7-11 years old

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formal operational stage

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abstract reasoning and logic, potential for mature moral reasoning, 12 years old and up

Front 78

flaws in Jean Piaget's theory

Back 78

development is a continuous process, children show some mental abilities and operations at an earlier age, formal logic is a smaller part of cognition than Piaget believed

Front 79

socialization

Back 79

process by which children learn norms and values that regulate their social environment, fundamental to our ability to efficiently interact with others, depends on a child's relationship with their parents/caregivers

Front 80

attachment

Back 80

emotional tie to another person, can appear as a desire for physical closeness to a caregiver, tested using "strange situations" test

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secure attachment

Back 81

most children, distress at separation, seek contact at reunion

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anxious insecure attachment

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clinging to mother, less exploration, distress at separation, remain upset at reunion

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avoidant insecure attachment

Back 83

indifferent to mother

Front 84

what causes different attachment styles?

Back 84

parenting styles and temperament

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authoritarian parenting

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parents impose rules and expect obedience

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passive parenting

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parents submit to kids' desires, do not enforce limits or standards for child behaviour

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authoritative parenting

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parents enforce rules, limits, and standards but also explain, discuss, listen, and express respect from child's ideas and wishes

Front 88

physical development during adolescence

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sexual maturation (primary and secondary sex traits), height changes

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neurological development during adolescence

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brain stops developing new synapses, pruning of connections not being used, coating most often used connections in myelin, brain in best state to learn things, frontal lobes last to mature with limbic system maturing much sooner

Front 90

cognitive development during adolescence

Back 90

focus on social representation and how others think of you, plan how to pursue goals, start to appreciate how reality compares to ideals

Front 91

Perry's Intellectual Development Scheme

Back 91

starts with kids who focus on absolute answers as they try to assimilate everything into schemas, adolescents begin to form more complex answers and respond with what they know the correct answer should be (even if they don't believe it themselves), finally appreciate and believe their complex answers

Front 92

what do maturation, experience, and education lead to?

Back 92

ability to appreciate that often multiple answers exist for any given problem, ability to tolerate intellectual uncertainty, ability to assess the validity of relative answers using critical thinking, ability to accept multiple relativistic answers

Front 93

Lawrence Kohlberg's levels of moral reasoning

Back 93

purpose of adolescence is building towards moral reasoning, thinking about meaning and purpose in deeper terms than in childhood

Front 94

preconventional morality

Back 94

up to age nine, "follow the rules because if you don't you'll get in trouble and if you do you might get a reward"

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conventional morality

Back 95

early adolescence, focus on societal values, "follow the rules because we get along better if everyone does the right thing"

Front 96

postconventional morality

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late adolescence and adulthood, focus on internal morality principles, "sometimes rules need to be set aside to pursue higher principles"

Front 97

critics of Kohlberg's model

Back 97

cultural bias, low correlation with moral behaviour, causal direction (assumes that you cognitively assess the situation and then feel an emotional response)

Front 98

Erik Erikson's model of lifelong psychosocial development

Back 98

8 stages characterized by different dilemma concerning our relations to other people

Front 99

infancy

Back 99

trust vs. mistrust, if needs are dependably met infants develop a sense of basic trust

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toddlerhood

Back 100

autonomy vs. shame and doubt, toddlers learn to exercise their will and do things for themselves or they doubt their abilities

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preschool

Back 101

initiative vs. guilt, preschoolers learn to initiate tasks and do things for themselves or feel guilty about wanting to be independent, must emphasize and reward tasks regardless of how well they are executed or they will feel guilty

Front 102

elementary school

Back 102

competency vs. inferiority, children learn the pleasure of applying themselves to competently accomplish tasks of they feel inferior, must build a genuine sense of competency and give actual advice rather than rewarding tasks regardlessly

Front 103

adolescence

Back 103

identity vs. role confusion, teenager work at refining a sense of self by testing roles and then integrating them into a single identity or they become confused about who they are, presents idea that teenagers should be conflicted

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young adulthood

Back 104

intimacy vs. isolation, young adults learn to form close relationships and to gain capacity for intimate love or they feel socially isolated

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middle adulthood

Back 105

generativity vs. stagnation, people discover a sense of contributing to the world (usually through family and work) or they feel a lack of purpose/meaning in their life

Front 106

late adulthood

Back 106

integrity vs. despair, feel a sense of satisfaction from having successfully gone through the previous stages or experience feelings of despair and failure

Front 107

impacts of growing old

Back 107

physical changes, decline in abilities, societal pressures, isolation and loneliness, solution is volunteering

Front 108

sensation

Back 108

the detection of physical energy by our sensory organs, which is then relayed to the brain

Front 109

preception

Back 109

the brain's interpretation of the raw sensory input from the sensory organs; the process of attending to, organizing, and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize/judge meaningful objects and events

Front 110

bottom-up processing

Back 110

taking sensory information and then assembling and integrating it (sensation); constructing the whole from its parts

Front 111

top-down processing

Back 111

using models, ideas, and expectations to interpret sensory information (perception)

Front 112

reception

Back 112

stimulation of sensory receptor cells by energy

Front 113

transduction

Back 113

transforming cell stimulation into neural impulses

Front 114

transmission

Back 114

delivering neural information to the brain to be processed

Front 115

absolute threshold

Back 115

minimum level of stimulus intensity needed to detect a stimulus half the time

Front 116

subliminal

Back 116

below our threshold for being able to consciously detect a stimulus, but still registered by the sensory organ

Front 117

difference threshold

Back 117

minimum difference for a person to be able to detect the difference half of the time

Front 118

Weber's Law

Back 118

for two stimuli to be perceived as different they must differ by a constant minimum percentage and not a constant amount

Front 119

signal detection theory

Back 119

aims to explain whether or not we detect a stimulus (particularly with background noise), suggests that detection depends on psychological factors such as alertness, expectations, motivation, as well as sensory experience (both bottom-up and top-down)

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Gestalt principles

Back 120

tries to understand the laws of our ability to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in an apparently chaotic world, human happiest living in the present moment

Front 121

Law of Pragnanz

Back 121

we perceive stimuli in our environment in their simplest form

Front 122

proximity

Back 122

objects physically close to each other tend to be perceived as unified wholes

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similarity

Back 123

objects similar to each other tend to be perceived as unified wholes

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continuity

Back 124

we still perceive objects as wholes even if parts are blocked

Front 125

closure

Back 125

parts are combined to create wholes

Front 126

symmetry

Back 126

we perceive objects that are symmetrically arranged as wholes

Front 127

figure-ground

Back 127

figure is the centre of our attention, we ignore the background, constantly make instantaneous decision to focus our attention on what we believe is the figure

Front 128

how do we go from energy waves to perception?

Back 128

multiple types of waves of electromagnetic radiation, our eyes respond to some wave sensations which become colours

Front 129

which wave properties do we perceive?

Back 129

wavelength, amplitude

Front 130

wavelength

Back 130

becomes colour/hue

Front 131

amplitude

Back 131

becomes intensity/brightness

Front 132

key structures of the human eye

Back 132

pupil, lens, iris, cornea, retina, fovea, blind spot, optic nerve

Front 133

types of photoreceptors

Back 133

cones and rods

Front 134

cones

Back 134

6 million, centre of retina, low sensitivity in dim light, high colour sensitivity, high detail sensitivity

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rods

Back 135

120 million, periphery of retina, high sensitivity in dim light, low low sensitivity, low detail sensitivity

Front 136

photochemical reaction in rods and cones

Back 136

light strikes rods and cones, chemical reaction activates bipolar cells, bipolar cells activate ganglion cells whose axons converge to form the optic nerve, nerve transmits information to the brain

Front 137

turning neural signals into meaningful images

Back 137

some ganglion cells are dedicated to specific visual patters, certain edges, lines, or movements, supercells integrate these feature signals to recognize more complex forms

Front 138

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

Back 138

assumes three types of colour receptors (cones): red, green, and blue; if you don't have a particular type of cone you won't be able to see particular colours

Front 139

opponent-process theory

Back 139

neural process based on sets of complementary colours, pairs inhibit each other, if one is overstimulated the other is perceived even if it isn't present

Front 140

how do we perceive depth?

Back 140

monocular and binocular cues, monocular requires only one eye

Front 141

linear perspective

Back 141

lines converge to a common point at a distance

Front 142

relative size

Back 142

more distant objects look smaller

Front 143

texture gradient

Back 143

texture of objects becomes less apparent the further away they are, more detail close up

Front 144

interposition

Back 144

closer objects block our view of objects further away/behind them

Front 145

height in plane

Back 145

in a scene, distant objects are higher and closer objects are lower

Front 146

binocular disparity

Back 146

each eye transmits different information for near objects, but become similar the further away objects are

Front 147

binocular convergence

Back 147

when we look at nearby objects our eyes converge together, brain can track eye muscle movements and use that information to estimate distance

Front 148

parallel processing

Back 148

building perceptions out of sensory details processed in different areas of the brain at the same time; different mental processes operating side-by-side without interacting with each other

Front 149

what is consciousness?

Back 149

often refers to a person's subjective awareness of internal and external stimuli, including thoughts, perceptions, experiences, and self-awareness

Front 150

four characteristics the "stream of consciousness" is governed by, according to William James

Back 150

1) every thought tends to be part of a personal consciousness

2) consciousness is in constant change

3) within each personal consciousness, thought is sensibly continuous

4) it attends to some parts to the exclusion of others

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what is attention?

Back 151

no one really knows, "taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or train of thought", "withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others"

Front 152

how does attention shape/limit consciousness?

Back 152

guides perception, which involves the processing of sensory information in such a way that it produces conscious experiences that we attend to; don't attend to all of it, only some pieces

Front 153

Broadbent's filter theory of attention

Back 153

attention is a bottleneck through which information passes, filter that allows us to pay attention to important stimuli while we ignore others

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selective attention

Back 154

what we focus on is what we consciously perceive, attention shapes how we construct the world around us (ex. Necker's cube)

Front 155

selective inattention

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refers to our failure to notice part of our environment when our attention is directed elsewhere

Front 156

does subliminal influence work?

Back 156

yes, in certain conditions, for a short time

Front 157

naive realism

Back 157

false belief that our senses are infallible and that our perceptions offer perfect representations of the world, when in reality the sensory organs are not as good as we feel they are and the brain fills in a lot of information to create our experience of reality

Front 158

how does our brain fill in the missing pieces?

Back 158

unconscious "low" track and conscious "high" track, low track is bottom-up and below the absolute threshold and does not require attention leading to automatic actions based on the cues that our sensory organs capture, high track is top down and above the absolute threshold and requires attention leading to deliberate actions based on what we recognize in our environment

Front 159

how does our brain combine diverse pieces of information into a unified whole?

Back 159

often referred to as the "binding problem", early assumption was that some areas would feed others that focus on associations, recent models approach the issue from an iteration perspective

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iteration perspective

Back 160

areas process information very rapidly and in coordination with each other and will repeat the process as needed, initial iterations provide relatively quick and dirty perceptions and help specify whether or not/which type of further processing is needed, initial iterations accompanied by reflective processes yield more nuanced perceptions

Front 161

influences of low and high track processes

Back 161

low and high track processes influence each other in creating a combined perceptual experience, as opposed to the tracks working parallel with each other, high track guides low track using expectations while low track guides high track in reflective search for interpreting stimuli, areas of the brain must be talking to each other in order for this to happen

Front 162

context effects

Back 162

context provides us a basis for expectations

Front 163

perceptual set

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what we expect to see influences what we do see (top-down processing)

Front 164

perceptual constancy

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ability to perceive objects as having constant shape, size, and colour despite changes in perspective (shape constancy, size constancy, colour constancy)

Front 165

how does socially learned expectations shape perception?

Back 165

ex. more people see Arnold Schwarzenegger as leaner because we expect him to be strong/chiseled

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typical variations of consciousness

Back 166

automatic variations (daydreaming, drowsiness, sleep, dreams), physiological variations (hallucinations, lack of oxygen, orgasms), psychological variations (sensory deprivation, hypnosis, mindfulness medication)

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rhythms of sleep

Back 167

approximately every 90 minutes we pass through 5 stages of sleep associated with different brain waves, which vary in frequency, amplitude, and regularity, measured by an EEG

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awake and active

Back 168

beta waves with high frequency and low amplitude, often irregular

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awake and calm

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alpha waves with lower frequency and higher amplitude than beta waves, more regular

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sleep stage 1 and 2

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theta waves with lower frequency and larger amplitude than alpha waves, breathing decreases, BP and HR decrease, sleep spindles

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sleep stage 3 and 4

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slow-wave sleep, delta waves with very low frequency, high amplitude, regular, memory consolidation, growth hormones released

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sleep stage 5

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rapid-eye movement (REM), brain activity increases, beta and alpha waves reappear, HR and respiration increase, eye movements under eyelids, associated with dreaming

Front 173

variations within 90 minute sleep cycles

Back 173

with each stage of 90 minutes the time spent in slow wave sleep decreases and the time spent in REM sleep increases

Front 174

why do we sleep?

Back 174

protection: sleep (staying hidden without movement) may have been adaptive from an evolutionary perspective

recovery: sleep helps restore and repair brain tissue

consolidation: while sleeping we consolidate, build, and rebuild our memories

growth: during sleep the pituitary gland releases GH (seniors release less GH and sleep less)

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effects of sleep deprivation

Back 175

concentration decreases significantly, memory decreases significantly, emotional control decreases significantly, ineffective immune system

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psychoactive substances

Back 176

chemicals produced naturally or artificially which alter the state of consciousness, perception, mood, and/or the regulation of behaviour

Front 177

stimulants

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euphoria, increased energy, lower inhibition, increase dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine

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hallucinogens

Back 178

major distortion of sensory and perceptual experiences, may lead to fear, panic, and paranoia, increase serotonin, block glutamate receptors

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depressants

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drowsiness, relaxation, sleep, increase GABA, some linked to release of endorphins

Front 180

physical dependence on drugs

Back 180

associated with painful withdrawal symptoms caused by changes in the physiological processes that regulate the body stemming from repeated administration of a drug

Front 181

psychological dependence on drugs

Back 181

psychological needs caused by the repeated experience of positive emotions and reduction of negative emotions during the administration of a drug

Front 182

addiction

Back 182

an involuntary servitude to obtain a substance, caused by physical and psychological dependence

Front 183

is alcohol a stimulant, hallucinogen, or depressant?

Back 183

causes euphoria, relaxation, and lowered inhibition, facilitates GABA activity, stimulates endorphin release, stimulates dopamine receptors, tolerance build gradually and the likelihood of dependence is moderate to high

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what are the main types of learning?

Back 184

classical conditioning: learning to link two stimuli in a way that helps us anticipate an event to which we have a reaction (aka Pavlovian learning, associative learning)

operant conditioning: changing behavioural responses in response to consequences, requires an organism to consciously act

cognitive (latent) learning): learning that can occur without reinforcement and without being directly observable, occurs merely through observation and acknowledgement

Front 185

learning without thinking?

Back 185

behaviourism started with proponents that mental life was much less important that behaviour as a foundation for psychological science, no causal relationship between thought and behaviour, B.F. Skinner and J.B. Watson

Front 186

neutral stimulus

Back 186

solicits no response

Front 187

unconditioned stimulus

Back 187

solicits unconditioned response due solely to the physiology of the individual, without any conditioning

Front 188

during Pavlovian conditioning

Back 188

neutral stimulus + unconditioned stimulus = unconditioned response

once the connection is made between the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus, the neutral stimulus will solicit the same response as the unconditioned stimulus, even if the unconditioned stimulus is not present

Front 189

after Pavlovian condtioning

Back 189

conditioned stimulus solicits conditioned response

Front 190

conditioned stimulus

Back 190

solicits a learned/conditioned response

Front 191

properties of classical conditioning

Back 191

acquisition, extinction & spontaneous recovery, generalization & discrimination

Front 192

acquisition

Back 192

the association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus is acquired, becomes apparent when the conditioned stimulus now triggers a response

Front 193

timing of acquisition

Back 193

for the association to be acquired, the neutral stimulus needs to repeatedly appear before the unconditioned stimulus

Front 194

extinction

Back 194

the diminishing of a conditioned response that occurs over time when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus

Front 195

spontaneous recovery

Back 195

after extinction and following a rest period, presenting the conditioned stimulus alone often leads to a spontaneous recovery

Front 196

generalization

Back 196

refers to the tendency to have conditioned responses triggered by related stimuli

Front 197

discrimination

Back 197

refers to the learned ability to only respond to a specific stimuli, preventing generalization

Front 198

other applications of classical conditioning

Back 198

increasing implicit self esteem through classical conditioning

Front 199

operant conditioning

Back 199

involves adjusting to the consequences of our behaviours, functionalism, original work done with rats, behavioural response is followed by a reward or punitive feedback from the environment

Front 200

Thorndike's law of effect

Back 200

reinforced behaviour is more likely to be tried again, punished behaviour is less likely to be attempted in the future

Front 201

how is operant conditioning different from classical conditioning?

Back 201

initiated by the organism, whereas in classical conditioning the organism does not consciously do anything

Front 202

types of reinforcement

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positive/additive reinforcement: adding something desirable (ex. giving in to a tantrum)

negative/subtractive reinforcement: removing something unpleasant (ex. seatbelt car alarm)

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continuous reinforcement

Back 203

the subject acquires the desired behaviour quickly

Front 204

partial/intermittent reinforcement

Back 204

the target behaviour takes longer to be acquired/established but persists longer without reward, can be based on intervals of time or the ratio of rewards per number of instances of the target behaviour

Front 205

fixed interval intermittent reinforcement

Back 205

slow, unsustained responding, rapid responding near time for reinforcement

Front 206

variable interval intermittent reinforcement

Back 206

slow, consistent responding

Front 207

fixed ration intermittent reinforcement

Back 207

high rate of consistent responding

Front 208

variable ratio intermittent reinforcement

Back 208

high rate of consistent responding, very robust and will resist extinction even if reinforcement stops

Front 209

positive/additive punishment

Back 209

adding something unpleasant/aversive (ex. spanking)

Front 210

negative/subtractive punishment

Back 210

removing something pleasant/desired (ex. taking away a toy)

Front 211

what conditions make physical punishment useful?

Back 211

must occur immediately after the behaviour, extremely important that it is consistent, intensity has little impact on the punishment, humans should be provided with an explanation and alternate actions, best when combined with positive reinforcement, physical punishment teaches to respond aggressively

Front 212

cognitive learning

Back 212

stimulus ---> organism ---> response

organism interprets the stimulus before responding, allows people to have "will" or self-control

Front 213

observational learning

Back 213

changes in behaviour and knowledge that occurs by watching others, typically role models, occurs without reingforcement, form of latent learning which is not directly and immediately observable

Front 214

what is memory?

Back 214

the persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information and skills

Front 215

how do we know something is remembered?

Back 215

recall: can retrieve information previously learned and unconsciously stored

recognition: can identify which stimuli match your stored information

relearning: is a measure of how much less work it takes you to learn information you had studied before

Front 216

what are the key steps to remember?

Back 216

encode: the information gets into our brains in a way that allows it to be stored

store: the information is held in a way that allows it to be later retrieved

retrieve: reactivating and recalling the information, producing it in a form similar to what was encoded

Front 217

implicit memories

Back 217

memories we are not fully aware of and thus don't declare or talk about, do not require attention/effort to encode and recall, procedural memories (learned motor skills/abilities), conditioned associations (things learned through conditioning)

Front 218

explicit/declarative memories

Back 218

facts and experiences that we can can consciously know and recall, require attention/effort to encode and recall, semantic memories (general knowledge), episodic memories (specific events we have experienced), flashbulb memories (intense long-term memories of emotional events)

Front 219

automatic processing

Back 219

memories go directly to long-term (implicit) memory, procedural memories (ex. riding a bike), conditioned associations, information about space, time and frequency (deja vu effects)

Front 220

effortful proccessing step one

Back 220

sensory memory, very brief recording of sensory information (varies depending on the sensation), analogous to an echo or an image of all the sensations we take in, if attention is placed on part of the information it will move to short-term memory or otherwise disappear

Front 221

effortful processing step two

Back 221

short term memory, attention determines selection of information from sensory memory sent to short-term/working memory, can hold 7 +/- 2 pieces of information for approximately 20 seconds

Front 222

spacing effect

Back 222

best to use the same amount of study time spread out over many shorter sessions, cramming is not effective

Front 223

testing effect

Back 223

if your distributed practice includes testing, you will learn more and retain more than if you merely reread

Front 224

chunking

Back 224

creating groups with pieces of information, best if these groupings are familiar to us

Front 225

hierarchies

Back 225

divide complex information into concepts and then sub-concepts

Front 226

visualization

Back 226

mental images are powerful aids to memory, especially when combined with semantic encoding (chunking/hierarchies), creating links that involve visual cues and the method of Loci

Front 227

method of Loci

Back 227

lining the information you are trying to store to the place you have it stored

Front 228

working memory

Back 228

holds information not just to rehearse it but to process it, integrates information from long term memory with new information coming in from sensory memory

Front 229

how much can we remember and for how long?

Back 229

brain's long term memory does not get full, gets more elaborately rewired and interconnected, estimated 1000 billion to 1000000 billion bits of information

Front 230

encoding, storage, retrieval and use of explicit memories

Back 230

encoding and storage facilitated by the hippocampus during sleep (consolidation), working memory retrieves information as directed by the frontal lobes

Front 231

encoding, storage, retrieval and use of implicit memories

Back 231

basal ganglia involved with the encoding and storage of procedural memory and motor skills, cerebellum involved with the encoding and storage of our conditioned responses

Front 232

emotions and memory

Back 232

emotional responses can accentuate/facilitate the encoding of information, strong emotions (stress, traumatic events) can strengthen memory formation

Front 233

flashbulb memories

Back 233

emotionally intense events that become burned in as a vivid-seeming memory, feels like a perfect copy of the short event, can become more traumatic each time it is recalled

Front 234

recalling information from long term memory

Back 234

when we recall our memories we filter or fill in parts to make our memories more consistent, each time we recall information our memories can change

Front 235

misinformation effect

Back 235

incorporating misleading information in the memory of an event

Front 236

source amnesia

Back 236

assigning details of a memory to the wrong source

Front 237

false memories

Back 237

often due to the confusion between an event that happened to you and that happened to someone else, belief that you remember something that actually never happened, likely to happen when you thought of the event often, imagined more details of the event, the event is easy to imagine, our attention is brought to the emotional reaction and not the facts

Front 238

false memory syndrome

Back 238

a condition in which the identity and relationships of a person rest on memories that are false, but perceived as real traumatic experiences; some cases induced by poorly trained and/or ill-intended therapists have been documented

Front 239

perils of memory in this information age

Back 239

because of multiple cognitive biases we have the illusion that we control how the information we encode affects us, but in reality we don't control it; the best solution may now be to consciously filter/select the information that you expose yourself to before exposing yourself to it

Front 240

cognition

Back 240

mental activities and processes associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating information

Front 241

concepts

Back 241

mental groupings of similar objects, events, states, ideas, and/or people, interchangeable with "schemas"

Front 242

how do we form/learn concepts?

Back 242

do NOT derive concepts from a definition that we have learned/memorized, typically derived from prototypes

Front 243

prototypes

Back 243

mental images of the best example of a concept within a category

Front 244

categorization of concepts

Back 244

create categories of objects according to a certain set of rules by a specific definition, fit to a category is determined by comparing a target to the prototype of the category, what we quickly access is the prototype and if the prototype doesn't fit we go back to the definition

Front 245

when do prototypes fail?

Back 245

when examples stretch the qualities associated with the prototype, when the boundary between the categories of concepts is fuzzy, when examples contradict our prototypes

Front 246

problem solving

Back 246

thinking in order to answer a complex question or to figure out how to accomplish a goal when the solution or path to the solution is not clear

Front 247

algorithms

Back 247

a step by step strategy for solving a problem, methodically leading to a specific solution, quality > speed

Front 248

heuristics

Back 248

mental shortcuts that give some guidance on how to solve a problem, help generate solutions quickly, does not guarantee solutions consistently, speed > quality

Front 249

representativeness heuristic

Back 249

judgement of likelihood based on the similarity or relationship with a particular category

Front 250

availability heuristic

Back 250

judgement of the frequency of an event based on how easily we think of examples

Front 251

confirmation bias

Back 251

tendency to search for information which confirms our current explanations, disregarding contradictory evidence

Front 252

fixation

Back 252

the tendency to get stuck in one way of thinking, often because of how we understand concepts, limits our ability to think of a problem/solution from a new perspective

Front 253

overconfidence

Back 253

tendency to be more confident than correct, overestimate the accuracy of our estimates, predictions, and knowledge

Front 254

language

Back 254

use of symbols to represent, transmit, and store meaning/information; useful for storing information, sharing information, and understanding others

Front 255

linguistic determinism

Back 255

the idea that our specific language determines how we think, has cultural aspects tied to it

Front 256

motivation

Back 256

refers to a need or desire that energizes behaviour and directs it towards a goal, combination of physiological and psychological processes

Front 257

instincts

Back 257

fixed (rigid and predictable) patterns of behaviour observed across all members of the species, not acquired by learning, totally rooted in genes, does not involve rational decision making (cognition)

Front 258

drive

Back 258

aroused/tense state related to a biological need that is not being met, shared among member of the species, includes hunger, thirst, belonging, pain, sex, etc.

Front 259

drive-reduction theory

Back 259

suggests we are motivated to restore homeostasis when a drive emerges

need ---> drive ----> drive reducing behaviour

Front 260

incentive

Back 260

a reward, increases the likelihood of a behaviour (positive reinforcement), allow for learned response-reward pairings, motivate by attracting the person to the reward as opposed to pushing the person like a drive

Front 261

push vs. pull forces

Back 261

when both drives/needs and incentives work in tandem we are highly motivated, but in some situations incentives conflict with needs

Front 262

motivation for arousal

Back 262

need to either increase or decrease out physiological arousal level to maintain an optimal level of arousal, don't want to be too aroused but don't want to be bored either

Front 263

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Back 263

starts with physiological needs, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization, highlights how wide-ranging human motivation can be, humans have multiple motives beyond pleasure and pain, order is not necessarily fixed, does not extend across cultures

Front 264

flow

Back 264

a state of experience where a person, totally absorbed, feels tremendous amounts of exhilaration, control, and enjoyment, occurs when people push their abilities to their boundaries and in doing so experience a merging of action and awareness, can occur throughout the spectrum of daily experience, achievement of flow is associated with psychological well-being

Front 265

intrinsic motivation

Back 265

concerns active engagement with tasks that people find interesting and promote growth, comprised of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, achieved through balance between the needs as opposed to maximizing any one of them

Front 266

autonomy

Back 266

refers to feeling like we are causal agents of our own behaviour and the goals we pursue

Front 267

competence

Back 267

people need to gain mastery of tasks and learn different skills, feeling of confidence

Front 268

relatedness

Back 268

people need to experience a sense of belonging and attachment to other people

Front 269

taste preferences

Back 269

humans have a universal preference for carbohydrates because of the amount of energy that they provide, other tastes are acquired and become favourites through exposure, culture, and conditioning, some are individually learned, aversions after only one incident

Front 270

the French paradox

Back 270

idea that people in France, although they eat fattier food, tend to be leaner and have less cardiovascular disorders than people in the US who eat less fatty foods, not a question of the fat but the eating habits across different cultures, portion sizes and time spent eating, American portions 25% larger and less time spent eating a meal

Front 271

need to belong

Back 271

most people think it is a secondary need but it is actually a fundamental need, essential from an evolutionary perspective, survival requires cooperation, married people are better off, loneliness is associated with greater risk of psychological and physiological disorders, the pain of social exclusion is associated with the activation of the same areas in the brain linked to physical pain

Front 272

what do emotions do?

Back 272

functional perspective suggests emotions are signals to motivation, well-suited to help us manage the "push" of biological processes and the "pull" of socio-cultural forces

Front 273

what is an emotion?

Back 273

A - arousal - something will change in your physiology (heart rate, sweating, etc.)

B - behaviour - overall body language/position

C - cognition - thoughts and labeling of the emotion

Front 274

emotions as motivation

Back 274

general agreement that emotions function as one type of motivator, but views about their importance vary

Front 275

emotions as evaluation

Back 275

positive emotions signal the satisfaction of our motivational states whereas negative emotions signal the frustration of our motivational states, emotions are not necessarily motives in the same way that needs are, instead they reflect the status of other motives

Front 276

James-Lange theory

Back 276

body before thoughts, our emotions directly follow the responses of our physiological reactions to a stimuli, when you see an event of significance your body begins to react and different feelings/types of arousal arise from this

Front 277

Cannon-Bard theory

Back 277

simultaneous body response and cognitive experience, our emotions occur simultaneously with our physiological reactions to a stimuli

Front 278

Schachter-Singer theory

Back 278

"two-factor" theory, emotion = body + a label, emotions are the result of physiological responses and the cognitive appraisal of this response, when a significant event happens we experience the joint combination of arousal and appraisal, means that we have control over our emotions

Front 279

emotions without cognitive appraisal

Back 279

Robert Zajonc, some emotional reactions (fears, likes, dislikes, etc.) develop in a "low road" through the brain, skip conscious thought

Front 280

are you controlled by your emotions?

Back 280

often emotions provide us with useful information that helps us adapt to changing life circumstances but sometimes the emotions we feel are not ideal or conflict with our roles, mastering the regulation of your emotions requires practice and effort but can be improved

Front 281

awareness monitoring

Back 281

recognize the emotions you are experiencing, label them, allows you to monitor them

Front 282

situation appraisal

Back 282

choosing how to view a situation, how you view that event affects how you will feel about it

Front 283

mindfulness

Back 283

mental state of consistent and flexible attention to the present moment both outside of us and within, involves accepting a nonjudgemental, curious attitude

Front 284

training mindful awareness

Back 284

non-religious and non-esoteric, derived from meditation practices, aim to strengthen attention/concentration skills, build self-awareness and improve how people manage their emotions

Front 285

two most frequently used mindfulness programs

Back 285

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

Front 286

negative forms of emotion regulation

Back 286

relying on external mechanisms to regulate emotions can backfire, relying on people/substances

Front 287

alcohol myopia

Back 287

a state of shortsightedness in which superficially understood, immediate aspects of experience have disproportionate influence on behaviour and emotion, using alcohol to regulate anxiety and stress, feel better about oneself, lower inhibition to do things that otherwise they would not be able to experience

Front 288

types of emotions

Back 288

positive + high arousal = enthusiastic

positive + low arousal = relaxed

negative + high arousal = fear/anger

negative + low arousal = sad

Front 289

basic human emotions

Back 289

anger, disgust, fear, happpiness, sadness, surprise, expressed across cultures using the same facial expressions and experiences, universal to all people, human have a preference for negative emotions, bad is stronger than good, bad increases motivation

Front 290

anger

Back 290

uncomfortable emotion often experiences when we believe we were wronged

Front 291

the catharsis myth

Back 291

reduce anger by acting aggressively to release it, aka venting or blowing off steam, actually counterproductive, teaches to act aggressively and often leads to feelings of guilt, the more you vent the better you become at being angry, if you change your mindset your anger can dissipate

Front 292

guilt

Back 292

typically occurs when we think a moral transgression occurred because of our "bad behaviour", motivates reparation

Front 293

shame

Back 293

typically occurs when we think a moral transgression occurred because we are a bad person, motivates withdrawal, leads to depression

Front 294

secondary emotions

Back 294

require socialization to be experienced, guilt and shame

Front 295

personality

Back 295

an individual's characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours persisting over time and across situations, develops in a dynamic interplay between conscious and unconscious processes

Front 296

Sigmund Freud

Back 296

fascinated by the unconscious, formulated a theory of the structure of human personality and its development, the theory and its therapeutic technique were named psychoanalysis

Front 297

components of personality according to Freud

Back 297

at the start of life personality is made up of the id ("the pleasure principle"), then the ego develops ("reality principle") and negotiates the demands of the id with reality and later the superego, around age 4 or 5 the superego ("morality pronciple") develops and a conscience internalized from parents and society following the ideals of morals, personality arises from the efforts of our ego to resolve tension between our id and superego

Front 298

Freud's theory of psychosexual stages

Back 298

oral (0-18 months): pleasure centres on the mouth

anal (18-36 months): pleasure focused on bowel and bladder elimination and control

phallic (3-6 years): pleasure zone is the genitals, coping with incestuous sexual feelings

latency (6-puberty): a phase of dormant sexual feelings

genital (puberty+): maturation of sexual interests

Front 299

psychoanalytic techniques for revealing the unconscious mind

Back 299

creative techniques such as free association, looking for meanings for the latent content of dreams or for slips of the tongue

Front 300

how does the ego protect us?

Back 300

reduces anxiety by unconsciously altering reality, uses denial, displacement, regression, projection, rationalization, and reaction formation

Front 301

denial

Back 301

refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities

Front 302

displacement

Back 302

shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person

Front 303

regression

Back 303

retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage

Front 304

projection

Back 304

disguising one's own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

Front 305

rationalization

Back 305

offering self-justifying explanations in the place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons to one's action

Front 306

reaction formation

Back 306

switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites

Front 307

Neo-Freudian psychodynamic theorists

Back 307

accept Freud's ideas about the importance of the unconscious and childhood relationships in shaping personality, the id/ego/superego structure of personality, the role of defense mechanisms, but recognize that anxiety and personality are a function of social pressures rather than sexual tensions in childhood

Front 308

psychodynamic personality assessment

Back 308

projection of unconscious themes into the conscious world, projective tests such as Rorschach, etc.

Front 309

updates to Freud's ideas

Back 309

development appears to be lifelong, not set in stone by childhood, dreams have many possible origins, infant neural networks are not mature enough to create a lifelong impact of childhood trauma, we may ignore threatening information but traumatic memories are usually intensely remembered rather than repressed, gender and sexual identity seem to be more a function of genetics and social forces rather than solely based on relationships with parents (Oedipus conflict)

Front 310

flaws in Freud's scientific method

Back 310

1) unfalsifiability: for many elements of Freudian theories it is impossible to derive clear hypotheses

2) unrepresentative sampling: very limited number of observations for theories that apply to humanity

3) biased observations: he elaborated and examined his theory with his own patients

4) post-facto explanations rather than predictions

Front 311

the unconscious today

Back 311

cognitive unconscious that operates automatically, is functional in nature particularly in regards to social functioning, and responds to situational stimuli, the unconscious is about processing, perceptions, and priming but is not a place

Front 312

humanist perspective on personality

Back 312

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, emerged in reaction to the dehumanizing ideas of behaviourism and the dysfunctional view of people in psychodynamic perspectives, focuses on conditions that support healthy personal growth as opposed to focusing on problems

Front 313

Rogers' person-centres perspective

Back 313

3 conditions that facilitate growth: genuineness, acceptance, empathy

Front 314

acceptance

Back 314

unconditional positive regard, acknowledging feelings and problems without passing judgment

Front 315

empathy

Back 315

tuning into the feelings of others, showing your efforts to understand

Front 316

ideal self vs. actual self

Back 316

in the humanistic perspective the core of personality in the self-concept, people are happiest with a self-concept that matches their ideal self

Front 317

critiques of the humanistic perspective

Back 317

lacks an appreciation for the contribution of genetic influences on some thought and behaviour patterns, argument that accepting accepting ideal self and self-actualization do not encourage self-transcendence but self-centredness

Front 318

trait

Back 318

an enduring quality that makes a person tend to act a certain way, Allport and Odbert identified 18000 English words that represent personality traits, factor analysis by Raymond Cattell grouped words that went together into 16 clusters, Hans and Sybil Eysenck identified two dimensions of traits (stable vs. unstable and introverted vs. extroverted)

Front 319

"Big Five" personality factors

Back 319

openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism (OCEAN)

Front 320

openness

Back 320

flexibility, nonconformity, variety

Front 321

conscientiousness

Back 321

self-discipline, careful pursuit of delayed goals

Front 322

extraversion

Back 322

drawing energy from others, sociability

Front 323

agreeableness

Back 323

helpful, trusting, friendliness

Front 324

neuroticism

Back 324

anxiety, insecurity, emotional instability

Front 325

questions about trait-based approaches to personality

Back 325

stability: assumption that personality is fairly stable and does not change over time

heritability: if traits are genetic they would not change over time

predictive value: personality traits are a relatively poor predictor of behaviour

Front 326

personality inventory

Back 326

questionnaire assessing many personality traits by asking which behaviours and responses the person would choose

Front 327

Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI)

Back 327

developed to examine personality as conceptualized by Jung, 16 personality type profiles, belongs to private company, determines where you focus your attention (extraversion vs. introversion), the way you take in information (sensing vs. intuition), the way you make decisions (thinking vs. feeling), and how you deal with the outer world (judging vs. perceiving)

Front 328

Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI)

Back 328

fully atheoretical, relies on patterns observed in the data using factor analysis; clinical scales, validity scales and supplemental scales

Front 329

assessing the big five

Back 329

NEO personality inventory (neuroticism, extraversion, openness) and NEO-PI-R (covers all five trait domains)

Front 330

struggles with personality tests

Back 330

struggle to predict any one instance of a behaviour, predict the occurrence of behaviour over long period of time, need to know about the social context in which that personality will be expressed

Front 331

reciprocal determinism

Back 331

how personality, thoughts, and social environment all reinforce/cause each other over time

Front 332

the self

Back 332

assumed to be the centre of personality by socio-cognitive approaches, the main repository of our memories, schemas and expectations which we use to interpret situations, stored information about us, guides the processing of thoughts, feeling and actions

Front 333

self-esteem

Back 333

the value of the self, increased self-esteem has been observed to buffer inflammatory responses to acute stress

Front 334

what is social psychology?

Back 334

the study of how people influence each other's thoughts, emotions and behaviour through their actual, imagined or anticipated presence

Front 335

auto-kinetic effect

Back 335

if put in a completely dark room with one dot of light, light will begin to appear as though it is hovering/moving

Front 336

why do we conform?

Back 336

to get information (informational influence), when the situation is ambiguous the actions of others help us figure out reality, often happens when we do not have well-learned norms for a particular situation, to fulfill our need to belong (normative influence), afraid of being ridiculed by others

Front 337

cognitive dissonance

Back 337

people want to maintain consistency between thoughts and/or actions and appear as a good person, inconsistencies between thoughts and/or behaviour create an unpleasant state of arousal, results from threat to people's sense of themselves as rational, moral and competent, motivates efforts to resolve inconsistencies

Front 338

attribution

Back 338

a conclusion about the cause of an observed behaviour, situational or dispositional

Front 339

situational attribution

Back 339

factors outside the person are causing the action

Front 340

dispositional attribution

Back 340

the person's stable traits/personality are causing the action

Front 341

fundamental attribution error

Back 341

we typically overestimate the dispositional influences and underestimate situational influences on other's behaviours

Front 342

actor-observer effect

Back 342

when we explain our own behaviour, blame the situation for our failures, assume successes are because of disposition, social cognitive bias that contributes to maintain high self-esteem

Front 343

attitude

Back 343

an evaluation of a person, place, object, event or behaviour, key component to how we understand others, lay assumption that attitudes guide behaviour

Front 344

components of attitudes

Back 344

A - affective - emotions or feelings toward

B - behavioural - actions that result from

C - cognitive - knowledge about

Front 345

do attitudes predict behaviour?

Back 345

assumption that private beliefs determine public behaviour, omits that people do not live in a social vacuum, situational influences also shape behaviour, does not mean that we have weak willpower bu shows that we have acquired motives that allow us to efficiently navigate our social world

Front 346

when do attitudes influence behaviour?

Back 346

the attitude is stable, the attitude is easily recalled, the attitude is specific to the behaviour,opposing external influences are minimal, external influences align with the attitude

Front 347

perceived social norms

Back 347

what we perceive relevant others would do/think/feel or see as acceptable to do/think/feel in a given situation

Front 348

persuasion

Back 348

a direct attempt to change someone's attitude

Front 349

central route of persuation

Back 349

change attitudes through the process of reasoning, when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favourable thoughts, provide good reasoning and high-quality arguments, need the recipient to have attention and motivation

Front 350

peripheral route of persuasion

Back 350

change attitudes through feelings and superficial associations, when people are influenced by incidental cues, do not need the recipient to have attention and motivation, can use this approach to motivate a central route

Front 351

compliance

Back 351

subtly getting people to act in some desired way, typically in a way that otherwise would be inconsistent with their attitude, different than persuasion, persuasion changes attitude to change behaviour whereas compliance changes behaviour and lets cognitive dissonance work to create attitude change, uses social needs as leverage to get people to act in a desired way

Front 352

foot-in-the-door technique

Back 352

make a small request that is likely to be accepted to get the person to commit to an action plan, follow it be a larger request which otherwise would most likely have been turned down, works through commitment to small steps that people do not notice or assume to be so simple they are harmless

Front 353

low-balling

Back 353

drawn in by first offer which seems great but final price is much higher, an advantage is offered that induces a favourable commitment but after the commitment is made the original advantage is changed

Front 354

bait-and-switch

Back 354

variation of the low-ball, bait with an attractive offer but the bait is not available when you get there, switch to different option

Front 355

fear-based messages

Back 355

contain vivid information and can be very persuasive, can be risky strategies because they can backfire, best used in combination with instructions on how to avoid negative outcomes

Front 356

how do we define psychological disorders?

Back 356

lack of control over symptoms that deviate from socio-cultural norms, cause dysfunctional or dangerous actions, cause distress

Front 357

what is normal?

Back 357

what most people do/think/feel (averages), what most people should do/think/fell (values), what most people would expect you to do/think/feel (expectations), whether a behaviour varies from normalcy depends on the context

Front 358

how to distinguish one disorder from the next

Back 358

patterns of dysfunctional behaviour and/or thoughts that create distress and deviate from the norm, some patterns tend to go together, these groupings of symptoms are the basis to distinguish one disorder from another one

Front 359

Diagnostic and Statistical manual

Back 359

newest version is DSM-V, classification primarily based on type and number of symptoms, aetiology of the symptoms, prognosis

Front 360

why create classifications of disorders?

Back 360

increases reliability between psychologists assessments, diagnoses create a verbal shorthand for referring to a list of associated symptoms, diagnoses allow to statistically study many similar cases which helps improve practice, diagnoses help guide treatment choices and learning to predict outcomes of treatment, used to justify payment for treatment

Front 361

critiques of the DSM

Back 361

border between disorder and normal is often blurry, border between diagnoses is often blurry, include value judgments shaped by prevailing cultural norms, direct how patients view themselves and others view them

Front 362

critiques of the DSM-V

Back 362

pharmaceutical company input, adding new disorders that end up pathologizing otherwise challenging but normal behaviour and though patterns, combining diagnoses criteria that might be better off separate, vague criteria

Front 363

five axes of the DSM-IV

Back 363

Axis I - all diagnostic categories except mental retardation and personality disorder

Axis II - is a personality disorder or mental retardation present?

Axis III - is a general medical condition also present?

Axis IV - are psychosocial or environmental problems also present?

Axis v - what is the global assessment of this person's functioning?

Front 364

anxiety disorders

Back 364

characterized by a permanent and irrational fear that typically brings people to avoid certain situations, people and/or objects

Front 365

generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

Back 365

apprehension and agitation persistent and uncontrollable, inability to identify the cause(s) of the anxiety, activation of the autonomic system to a generalized wide range of stimuli

Front 366

phobia

Back 366

uncontrollable, irrational, intense desire to avoid certain situations, people or objects

Front 367

obsessive compulsive disorder

Back 367

obsessions are intense, unwanted worries, ideas, and images that repeatedly pop up in the mind, a compulsion is a repeatedly strong feeling of needing to carry out an action even though it doesn't feel like it makes sense

Front 368

classical conditioning and anxiety

Back 368

acquiring anxious responses, result is a phobia or generalized anxiety

Front 369

operant conditioning and anxiety

Back 369

negative reinforcement motivating anxious-avoidant responses, result is an increase in anxious thoughts and behaviours, maintain anxious responses

Front 370

cognition and anxiety

Back 370

cognitive processes include anxiety-provoking thoughts such as mistaken appraisals and rumination (worried thoughts), in anxiety disorders such types of cognitions appear repeatedly and often automatically, acquired though direct and observational learning

Front 371

mood disorders

Back 371

cluster of disorders for which a disturbance of the person's mood is assumed to be the underlying cause

Front 372

major depression

Back 372

6% of men and 10% of women, depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, most of the time/days during the same two weeks, will sometimes also manifest more in terms of somatic symptoms, subjective report or observation made by others

Front 373

stigma/misconceptions surrounding depression

Back 373

major depression episodes are actually painful for the person, adding stigma makes it worse

Front 374

mood disorders from a biological perspective

Back 374

less norepinephrine (arousal) during depressive episodes, reduced serotonin activity with presence of depression symptoms

Front 375

substance abuse disorders

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disorders in which the need for obtaining a substance and/or its frequent use creates dysfunction, in most societies moderate use of some psychoactive substances is considered normal, when moderate substance use is normal in a given environment it may hamper people from noticing they have a problem

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when does an unhealthy habit become a disorder?

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loss of control over the use of the substance, impairment in daily functioning and continued use of substance despite adverse consequences, physical or emotional adaptation to the drug such as in development of tolerance

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target of substance abuse disorders

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target the brain, substances that can cross the blood-brain barrier, typically affect areas of the brain tied to the neurotransmitter dopamine

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neuroadaptation

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with time the brain adapts to the repeated/continuous presence of the substance which leads to a greater tolerance, facilitated by biological, psychological and social factors

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opponent process theory

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early on the substance produces a hedonic state (affective pleasure), positive reinforcement motivates the search for that experience again, opponent processes will start to change the body to adjust to the presence of the substance and build tolerance, with repeated exposure a higher dose is needed for the same "buzz", eventually when the substance is not taken the body experiences an unpleasant state (withdrawal), negative reinforcement sets in and motivates the search for the substance

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how do we go from symptoms to treatment?

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client comes with symptoms, axis 5 (emergency response), axis 4 (change environment), axis 3 (treat medical condition), axis 2 (long term management), axis 1 (psychological treatment)

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two avenues of treatment

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change something in the environment, enhance the person's abilities using medication or psychotherapy

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psychotherapy

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an interactive experience with a trained professional, goal of understanding and changing dysfunctional habitual patterns of behaviour, thinking and/or emotions

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biomedical therapy

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the use of medications and other procedures acting on the body to reduce the symptoms of mental disorders, goal of addressing changes associated with psychological disorders

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systematic desensitization

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beginning with a tiny reminder of the feared situation, keep increasing the exposure intensity as the person learns to tolerate the previous level

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counterconditioning

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linking new positive responses to previously aversive stimuli

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operant conditioning therapy

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making sure that desired behaviours are rewarded and problematic behaviours are not rewarded (or punished), often requires monitoring to identify the stimuli that triggers the response

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Aaron Beck's therapy for depression

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depression is worsened by errors in thinking, interpreting current events as signs of the worst possible outcome (catastrophizing), raise awareness by questioning without judgement to identify the cognitive error, change the faulty cognitive process through exercise

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cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

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works to change both cognitions and behaviours that are part of a psychological disorder

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psychologist

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protected title, must be registers with the college of psychologists, anyone can call themselves a psychotherapist

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3 tips for active listening

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paraphrasing, intentional silences, validating what people say